


Tacky

by thesnadger



Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, holiday party, only rated teen because of the tinest innuendo and like one swear, remarkably clean for a fic with Rick in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8996497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnadger/pseuds/thesnadger
Summary: Mabel knits a special sweater for her Grunkle Stan and his gross boyfriend. They don't just like it...they LOVE it! She's created a monster.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on stanchez-sloppy-seconds‘s [glorious drawing of Stan and Rick in a two-person sweater.](http://stanchez-sloppy-seconds.tumblr.com/post/154809659941/tacky-holiday-sweaters-are-still-the-in-thing)

Ford stared across the den of the Mystery Shack, a half-finished schematic ignored and forgotten on his lap. He checked the clock on the wall. Three hours. Three hours, and they were still wearing it.

It was always hard to predict how Rick would react to presents. Ford had seen him respond to the gift of a quantum bio-prism--something Ford _knew_ Rick wanted, that he'd taken great risk to help Stan acquire for him—with nothing more than a roll of his eyes and a muttered “whatever.” Yet when he and Stan opened their gift from Mabel and pulled out...that...that _thing..._ a two person sweater, sewn up across the middle like a creation of Dr. Frankenstein with Christmas decorations on one half and Hanukkah lights on the other...Rick had laughed with utter delight.

Yes, he made a crack about the light-up elements on the little Christmas tree electrocuting him, but he'd said it with a smile--not the superior deadpan look he wore when he was taking potshots at someone. Usually Ford. He'd immediately shrugged off his lab coat and hooked an arm around Stan's middle, pulling him close enough to slip the monstrous thing over both their heads. Of course, Stan would happily wear a hair shirt woven with barbed wire if Mabel made it for him, so it had been no surprise to see him laugh and grin and let Rick trap him in that abomination of yarn and LED lights.

Ford only had the displeasure of being stuck in a two-person sweater once, after Mabel caught him arguing with Stan during one of their visits back to Gravity Falls. They had both insisted it wasn't a _fight_ fight, but she wouldn't hear it. She'd stormed out and, an astonishingly short amount of time later, returned with a two necked, two-armed sweater with the words “best bros” written on the front. Ford still wasn't quite sure how she convinced them to put it on, let alone  _keep_ it on, but Mabel could be persuasive when she wanted to be.

Forty endless minutes later, they'd managed to convince her that they were getting along. And they'd celebrated the apparent renewal of their brotherly bond by taking that darned sweater into the woods and burning it. Ford could only imagine how much harder it would be for Stan and Rick to move around in that thing—between the height difference and the tendency both of them had to talk with their hands, he was sure Mabel's gift would be aflame within the hour. And yet, here they were.

Ford watched while Stan ducked, allowing Rick to reach over him and snatch a glass of punch from Summer as she passed them by. Stan hadn't even been looking in Rick's direction, he just kept talking with Soos, not even missing a beat. He didn't seem annoyed either when Rick turned him away and pulled him back towards the TV room. He just gestured with his free hand for Soos to follow and walked with him.

Dipper dove out of their way as they walked—Ford sympathized with the boy. The sweater stretched between the two of them as they walked, creating a wall of yarn that Ford had personally gotten caught in five times already that evening. As a pair, they took up more space and always seemed to be in someone's way. Yet when they found the space between the couch and coffee table wasn't big enough for the both of them, they found a way through it easily—Stan simply wrapped an arm around Rick inside the sweater and hoisted him up, allowing the taller man to lift his legs over the table as they passed. They did this all without conversation, effortlessly, or so it seemed.

Ford flipped to a blank page on his journal and wrote “ _Anomaly 347 – Mabel's Holiday Sweater”_ at the top. He sketched a quick likeness of the two of them wearing it, adding “possible psychic connection? May be a property of the sweater itself or of the people wearing it” and “a whole more annoying than the sum of its parts!” underneath.

He continued filling out the entry, adding in observations from earlier that evening and finishing out the sketch. It was engrossing enough that he began to tune out the room around him, until his concentration was broken by a voice beside his ear.

“Nice likeness, bro. But next time, you oughta add more muscle tone...here and here.”

Stan's finger came in from Ford's peripheral vision, pointing out the areas on the sketch he felt could use some embellishment. Ford blushed, feeling caught. His nostrils filled with the distinctive smell of alcohol and burning circuitry that always seemed to follow Rick as he peered over Ford's shoulder, squinting.

“Heh, that's rich. Are all your diary entries this passive-aggressive?” he asked.

“Seriously, Ford.” Stan said. “The only thing mysterious about this sweater is where Mabel got Rick's measurements from.”

“I'm just shocked the two of you haven't driven each other crazy yet.” Ford said, snapping his journal shut. “How do you move around in that thing?”

“Oh, that probably has to do with the summer of '76.” Stan said. “Or '75? Not sure, really. Whenever it was that we pissed off those mobsters.”

“Yeah, if y-y-you think being tied together is hard you should try it when you're dragging a radiator between you.” Rick muttered.

“Then there were, what, three chain gang incidents?” Stan scratched his head.

“You can't count the third one, that barely lasted a day.” Rick said.

“Yeah, but one day in that swamp's gotta count for at least six on dry land.” Stan protested. “Remember those crocodiles? Dipper claims they're 'endangered.'” Stan scoffed, making quotation marks with his free hand. “They sure weren't in any danger when I saw ‘em, lemmie tell you. And that's not even getting into any of the really weird stuff you've gotten me into with that dumb portal gun of yours.”

“Hey, I'll have you know there are _plenty_ of people out there who'd  be perfectly happy to be symbiotically attached to me.” Rick said, shoving him from inside the sweater. “You were the one who had to start pushing buttons.”

“...I think I'm starting to get the idea.” Ford muttered.

“Oh, oh...” Rick grinned. “What about that time in Nevada, where we lost the key to--”

“Yeah.” Stan cut him off. “Pretty sure he doesn't want to hear about that one.”

“What happened?” Ford asked, unwisely.

“We had to walk halfway across the desert, handcuffed together and buck-ass-”

“--Arrested.” Stan said, hooking an arm around Rick's neck inside the sweater and putting him in a headlock, covering his mouth with the other hand. His cheeks were red. “We got arrested. That's why we were handcuffed together. No need to question anything further.”

He pulled his hand away from Rick's mouth as the older man's tongue slinked out, giving his palm a sloppy lick. Stan wiped it on his slacks, making an exaggerated noise of disgust.

“All right. I'm bored with this conversation. C'mon Lee, pretty sure I see Morty trying to flirt with that tall girl who crashed the party, s-someone should really tell him she's just a bunch of gnomes stacked on top of each other.”

Without another word, Rick walked off, tugging Stan along with him. Stan gave a one-armed shrug, but didn't seem to mind as the sweater tether pulled him along.

As Ford watched them go, the flash of a camera in his periphery grabbed his attention, and he turned to see Mabel's grinning face. She was holding up a Polaroid—no, not a Polaroid camera, Ford corrected himself. No one used those anymore...this was one of those modern digital cameras that made little print-outs from a roll of sticker paper hidden inside it.

Without a word, Mabel parked herself on the arm of the chair Ford was sitting in and pulled out one of her scrapbooks. She peeled the photo of Rick and Stan off its backing and stuck it down between a shot of Dipper and Morty's Magic card tournament and a picture she'd apparently snapped of Ford without him noticing. She then held it out for him to admire.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Best Christmas slash Hanukkah slash Yule slash Saturnalia party ever, or what?”

“How did you know?” Ford asked.

“Know what, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel asked, looking up at him innocently.

Ford opened his mouth to explain, then stopped, sighed, and affectionately ruffled Mabel's hair.

“Never mind.” he said. “Just tell me that you'll never use your powers for evil.”

“I make no promises!” she chirped, snuggling into him.


End file.
